Perdue: Reduced Greenhouse Gases=Reduced Run-Off Potential?

Ah run-offs. It’s where the claws come out and the parties eat their own. Sometimes the media helps. We like to do our part here at Peach Pundit and get into internal debates while we’re at it. In the AJC, Bluestein highlighted Perdue’s ties to Alliant Energy Corporation and his time on Alliant’s environmental and safety committee while “becoming one of the first utilities to support a national program to reduce greenhouse gases by taking steps such as shuttering less efficient coal-fired plants”.

Going green doesn’t typically bode well for candidates trying to win in a red state, even though conservatives are supposed to favor, you know, conservation. Is this a stumbling block for Perdue? Discuss. The full article is below the fold.

New carbon limits put David Perdue’s utility ties in spotlight

By Greg Bluestein

The Obama administration’s announcement today that it wants to fight climate change by slashing carbon pollution will undoubtedly rile up GOP candidates for office. But it also puts one high-profile Georgia contender’s ties to a utility in the spotlight.

Both businessman David Perdue and Rep. Jack Kingston, who square off in a July 22 GOP runoff for the open Senate seat, have vowed to oppose more regulations for carbon dioxide by arguing that the red tape will hamper business.

But Perdue’s role with a utility company that has flirted with support of a cap-and-trade system – anathema to many Republicans today – places him in a trickier position.

The former Fortune 500 executive has sat on the board of Alliant Energy Corporation, a Wisconsin-based utility with more than 1.4 million customers, since 2001, a span that included President Barack Obama’s push for a cap-and-trade system to limit emissions that scientists blame for trapping heat and warming the planet.

Several tipsters opposed to Perdue pointed out that during that time, Perdue served on the board’s environmental and safety committee and the company’s leaders voiced support for the efforts.

The utility’s chief executive, Bill Harvey, applauded the board in an October 2009 conference call for becoming one of the first utilities to support a national program to reduce greenhouse gases by taking steps such as shuttering less efficient coal-fired plants. And the same year, the Cedar Rapids Gazette reported that Harvey came out in favor of the cap-and-trade system.

According to the Gazette:

“Harvey said Alliant supports a cap-and-trade system for greenhouse gas regulation but prefers a system that would allow utilities an initial allotment of credits to emit greenhouse gases rather than a system that would require them to bid at auction for their initial credits. He said any funds raised from the auction should be invested in technologies for reducing greenhouse gases.”

Perdue’s spokesman Derrick Dickey said that the businessman had no role in the utility’s cap and trade position. He has also said, when Perdue’s opponents pointed out that Alliant received $3.4 million in stimulus money, that a member of the 10-person board has limited say in the corporation’s daily actions.

“A board of directors at a company that size is not involved in granular level operational decision making,” Dickey told The Hill. “Of course the board has a general awareness of the company’s activities, most of which are highlighted in annual and quarterly public reports; however, it does not direct the day-to-day operational decisions.”

I just don’t see the wisdom in shuttering coal plants here in the U.S., when China and India have commissioned hundreds of coal plants start construction on in the near future.

Coal has come a long way. It is not the cleanest energy, but it is cleaner than it was say, 50 years ago, thanks to new technologies to reduce emissions.

Meanwhile China might as well be burning tires to provide electricity to factories that used to provide jobs for Americans. We need to find a balance between clean energy and economic suicide, because right now, we’re moving towards the latter.

A good seam of coal in West Virginia is generally 3 ft. deep, in Wyoming 30 ft., in Manchuria 300 ft. This is why China is still building new coal fired plants. Not sure about India. China doesn’t care about environmental anything including leveling mountains to get the coal or the fact you have to wear a mask in many of their cities at certain times of the year to keep from breathing the crap.

“We need to find a balance between clean energy and economic suicide, because right now, we’re moving towards the latter.”

How, exactly, are we moving towards economic suicide?

In Georgia we have already cut our carbon emissions by MORE than the 30% the proposed EPA rule requires. Is Georgia in the midst of “economic suicide?”

Further, in just 2 years (not the 16 years allowed by the proposed EPA rule), Georgia has cut coal from over 60% of power generation capacity, to approximately 35%. This will go way, way higher as soon as the 2 new Vogtle reactors come online.

In other words, Georgia is already going to significantly exceed the requirements of the EPA rule, whether it comes into effect or not.

Don’t know about economic suicide but mandates that overrun technology might accelerate costs or cuts. TV news reports coal dependent states will be hit very hard but Obama says the non coal states will gain the jobs…..

We got coal….if we squeeze out coal generation can we slap a big tariff on exported coal that the world will be buying….? Or do we sell our natural resources to them on the cheap so they can kick our colonialist butts ?